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Fuel shortages and economic issues
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-23
Monday June 20^th – Sunday June 26^th 2005

THE government media also failed to properly report the intensifying economic crisis, characterised by acute fuel shortages and an increasingly inflationary environment.

For instance, the government Press carried 11 stories on the subject as compared to 30 featured by the private papers.

Notably, most of the stories carried in the government papers were a passive echo of the authorities’ reasons for the country’s economic decline. For example, of the four reports these papers published on fuel shortages, half of them stemmed from government responses to MDC legislators’ questions on the fuel crisis while the remainder were mere events describing how commuters were having difficulties in finding transport.

Likewise, more than half of the 23 stories ZBH (ZTV [8], Radio Zimbabwe [8] and Power FM [7]) rehashed the government’s explanation for the self-evident fuel crisis. The rest were uncritical reports on the impact of foreign currency shortages on government’s projects.

None of the official media’s reports took the authorities to task over how they were going to address the fuel crisis.

Studio 7’s two reports also failed to challenge the authorities on the issue.

It was only the private Press that demanded answers in most of its eight stories on the crisis. Such was the papers’ tenacity that The Daily Mirror (20, 21 and 25/6) carried editorials all criticising government’s silence on the crisis.

In fact, the Zimbabwe Independent (24/6) revealed that the IMF team currently in the country had learnt that, "Zimbabwe has no plan in place to save the country from the crippling fuel shortage," and that, "Zimbabwe does not currently have any fuel in reserve as the shortages have continued to bite". However, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono told the paper that, "a solution to the fuel problem was in sight". He did not elaborate.

Although the private papers’ coverage on the galloping cost of living was almost as thin as that of the government Press, they tried to explain the causes of the economic ills afflicting Zimbabwe. They cited foreign currency shortages, the high inflation and government overspending, which has resulted in it accumulating a ballooning domestic debt of $10 trillion to finance its budget deficit, as some of the main culprits.

The government Press evaded these matters.

Instead, The Herald (23/6) merely cited Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa telling Parliament that Zimbabwe’s economic crisis stemmed from the sanctions imposed on the country by the international community.

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